A central column of ASPECT Studios’ practice is the reintroduction of nature as a central feature of the built environment. Through green infrastructure projects, we can use natural systems to engineer solutions to the problems of urban life.
Our cities have disrupted natural systems to the point of collapse, and by integrating these systems into built projects we can mitigate and repair this damage – to the benefit of both people and the natural world. But the greater opportunity lies in the capacity of this green infrastructure to actively benefit its site and the wider urban context.
Green infrastructure & living architecture
Landscape as architecture, architecture as landscape.
Green infrastructure can take many forms, including the active inclusion of existing natural systems and assets, water-sensitive urban design, or living architecture elements like green roofs, facades and walls.
These techniques involve inserting nature into an artificial, constructed environment, and their successful implementation demands knowledgeable and thoughtful design. Rather than retaining an existing ecology, creating green infrastructure instead involves creating a new, complex system of natural interactions that needs to be deeply understood in order to be resilient.
These techniques involve inserting nature into an artificial, constructed environment, and their successful implementation demands knowledgeable and thoughtful design. Rather than retaining an existing ecology, creating green infrastructure instead involves creating a new, complex system of natural interactions that needs to be deeply understood in order to be resilient.
ASPECT Studios has made the investments in our people and their knowledge to ensure that this work can take place in a meaningful way. These can be measured on the environmental and aesthetic levels, but they are also a real asset in operational and economic terms. Nature can, in other words, be put to work. Green infrastructure can be used to purify water, to cool surroundings, and to improve human comfort and wellbeing, among a long list of other benefits.
Green infrastructure typifies the leading role ASPECT Studios plays in helming collaborative projects. It is the synthesis of civil engineering, ecology, architecture, and structural and hydraulic design, and in engaging in these projects ASPECT plays a unique jack-of-all-trades role that draws on the deep and varied expertise found in our studios around the world.
Green infrastructure typifies the leading role ASPECT Studios plays in helming collaborative projects. It is the synthesis of civil engineering, ecology, architecture, and structural and hydraulic design, and in engaging in these projects ASPECT plays a unique jack-of-all-trades role that draws on the deep and varied expertise found in our studios around the world.
Our work
The rooftop gardens that conceal the Victorian Desalination Plant, and the ecological reserve that surround it, mark a leap forward for the possibilities of green infrastructure.
The greenery covering One Central Park in Sydney was the product of ambitious design and committed collaboration.
The rooftop garden at Tarrawarra Abbey disguises a system that saturated the soil with site-captured water to create an innovative defense against bushfires and extreme weather.
The greenery covering One Central Park in Sydney was the product of ambitious design and committed collaboration.
The rooftop garden at Tarrawarra Abbey disguises a system that saturated the soil with site-captured water to create an innovative defense against bushfires and extreme weather.
